The OneGeology project is intended to use the accumulated knowledge of scientists from over 55 countries to put together a comprehensive, dynamic, digital geological map of the Earth. Upon completion of the project, the results will be available on the Internet for everyone to use. Plans are to place it on Google Earth and other similar dynamic map browsers.

The intended scale of the mapping is 1:1 million; that is, one million measurement units (such as centimeters) of actual physical measurement will be reduced to one unit on the digital map.

Project leaders hope their efforts will help to coordinate all the knowledge geologists have around the world, and to acknowledge all the information that is not yet know.

Some of the leading organizations involved with the project include: International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE), Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW), International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM), International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), EuroGeoSurveys, International Consortium of Geological Surveys (ICOGS), UNESCO, and International Lithosphere Program.

One important consequence of the OneGeology project is to hopefully locate large geological structures that may some day in the future be used to store carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas produced from the burning of fossil fuels. The future ability to store huge amounts of carbon dioxide is called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which captures carbon dioxide from power plants and other large sources and stores it safely in large natural structures so it cannot be released into the atmosphere.

All the information collected in the OneGeology project will be transferred to GeoSciML (Geosciences Markup Language), a geological language already used around the world for the recording of rock types, fossils, and other geological materials and information.

The OneGeology project is scheduled to begin at a meeting to be held at the Old Ship Hotel in Brighton, England, from March 12 to 16, 2007. The meeting will be conducted by the British Geological Survey. Initial information is expected to be available in the mid-2008 timeframe.

For more information about the project, go to: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/onegeology/home.html.

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